Mr. Dinkle stood conversing with an extremely fat man who stood next to a beat-up yellow Volkswagen Beetle in the used car lot. The fat man’s obese wife and overweight son stood beside him, blocking most of the aisle. The overweight son was licking a huge lollipop. Mr. Dinkle was in his best used car salesman form. “I’m telling you, mister, this is a bargain you can’t afford to pass up.”
The fat man slapped his huge knee and guffawed and his obese wife laughed with him. His overweight son was focused on licking his lollipop as quickly as he could so he could finish it and ask for another one, but upon hearing his parents laugh, he decided to join in, too.
Mr. Dinkle, undaunted, knew he had a live one and was determined to reel him in. “Look at those tires.” The fat family stared in unison at the under-inflated, worn out tires of the Volkswagen. “Look at that paint job,” said Mr. Dinkle. The fat family stared at the cracked, peeling paint on the car. Mr. Dinkle wasn’t starting to panic yet, but he did begin to feel a little worried. However, he was determined to sell this fat guy the car. “Why, anyone can see that at only twenty-nine ninety-nine it’s a real steal.”
“Somebody ought to steal it,” the fat man said. “They’d be doing you a favor.” The fat man, his wife and son again burst out laughing. “Listen, mister,” he said honestly, “I’m afraid we’re just not interested in this car.”
Mr. Dinkle decided to pull out all of the stops. “That’s too bad,” he said with resignation in his voice. “Because today we’re giving away five pounds of chocolate candies with every car sold.”
The fat man and his wife, suddenly serious, looked at each other. “What…what kind of chocolate candies?” asked the obese wife to Mr. Dinkle, her voice trembling slightly.
Mr. Dinkle knew it was time to reel them in. “Madam DeKay’s Supremes,” he announced triumphantly.
The obese wife gasped and faced her husband. “Madam DeKay’s Supremes. Oswald, those are my favorites.” The fat man wiped some slobber from the corner of his mouth. The fat son’s stomach began to growl.
Mr. Dinkle went for the kill. “And, in addition, for every yellow car that’s sold today we’ll make it ten pounds of chocolate candies.”
The fat man was now sweating profusely. “Mister,” he said, “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Fifteen minutes later the beat up Volkswagen, loaded down with the fat family, pulled out of the car lot and headed down the street. Metal from the bottom of the car dragged against the asphalt, causing sparks to fly. Loud eating and belching noises came from inside the vehicle.
As the fat family belched their way along Main Street, the telephone on the wall rang inside the Dinkle kitchen. Mrs. Dinkle paused from putting groceries away in the refrigerator and answered it. “Hello? … Amanda, why aren’t you at work? … He what? … She did? … They did? … Thank you for calling, Amanda.” Mrs. Dinkle hung up the phone, dazed.
While Mrs. Dinkle sat silently at the kitchen table, trying to comprehend the meaning of Amanda Horsehide’s revealing phone conversation about her husband’s new assistant the children at the Tootville Junior High School were between classes. The blissful, innocent young men and women were fortunate not to be sharing in any of the problems of the real adult world. Timmy walked up to Tank as he stood with the little red-headed girl.
“I’ve been thinking, Tank,” Timmy said in his most neighborly tone of voice. “What do you say we forget everything that’s happened between us in the past and start out fresh?” Timmy extended his hand in a gesture of friendship and neighborliness but Tank did not respond in a positive manner.
“I’m going to punch your face in,” said Tank, ominously looming over the smaller Timmy.
“Maybe this will help you to see that I really want to be friends,” said Timmy warmly. He reached up and slapped Tank several times in the face. Tank remained unfazed. “Or maybe this will help you to see how much fun we could have together,” Timmy continued. He grabbed Tank’s shirt and ripped it.
Tank looked at Timmy, then at his torn shirt. He smashed Timmy in the face with his right fist and knocked him backwards to the ground. Timmy squinted groggily up to see the red-headed girl looking down at him with an expression of great pity on her face.
As Timmy lay on the asphalt playground, shaking the cobwebs from his battered brain, Stretch stood triumphantly, posing near the statue of Major Toot. For once the area was free from doggy mess. He posed coolly with one foot on his basketball as admiring girls jockeyed for position around him. “Anybody want to feel my muscle?” As Stretch flexed, the girls oohed. Spaz and Tommy approached the admiring group. “Hey, Spaz,” Stretch said, being his coolest. “What do a wad of toilet tissue and the Starship Enterprise have in common?”
“I don’t know. What?” responded Spaz, innocently allowing himself to be suckered in.
“They both circle Uranus in search of Klingons.”
The group of girls broke into laughter but Tommy remained unimpressed. “I know something even funnier,” he said to Stretch.
“What, airhead?” replied Stretch with great disdain.
“My dog is peeing on your basketball,” announced Tommy gleefully.
Stretch looked down at his now glistening ball and kicked at Watson, who yelped as he backed away.
“Cut it out!” yelled Tommy. He shoved Stretch away from his dog.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” said Stretch, in a low voice. The two young men rushed together with fists flying. Stretch landed a solid blow to Tommy’s midsection, then another. A vicious right to the face sent Tommy reeling backwards to the ground. “What’s the matter? Can’t take it, dork?”
Tommy wiped blood from his nose and stood up for round two, but Stretch landed another series of punches and put Tommy down again with another hard right. “You want to know why Linda dumped you?” he said to Tommy. “Because she thinks you were a second-rate boyfriend. Do you hear that, Dinkle? You’re only second string.” Stretch raised one arm in a victory salute as he stood next to the statue of Major Toot.
Tommy, kneeling on the ground, was ready for some payback. He pulled a warm, semi-melted Three Musketeers candy bar from a pocket. He ripped off the wrapper and hurled the bar with all of his strength, grenade style, at his self-centered, egotistical foe. It struck Stretch squarely in the chest and stuck to his jersey. “Candy bar!” Tommy screamed.
From out of nowhere Two-ton Tilly appeared. “Candy bar!” she echoed, and as she charged forward the admiring crowd of girls screamed and scattered. Tilly dove for the candy bar and with the howl of a doomed soul, Stretch went down under the humongous hulk. Two-ton Tilly, lying on the ground, munched serenely on the candy bar. All that could be seen of Stretch were his two legs, twitching as he lay smashed beneath Tilly’s massive girth.
___
Principal Dood stood imperially behind the desk in his office, facing Coach Dribble and a most repentant Tommy. “You know the rules as well as I do, Coach,” said Principal Dood sternly. “Any student involved in a fight is automatically suspended from all athletic activities for the period of one week.”
“But with Stretch out and Tommy kicked off the team for a week we’ll be massacred. Have a heart. It’s the championship game.”
“My hands are tied, coach,” said Principal Dood with finality. “Perhaps if you kept your players under a little tighter control, things like this wouldn’t happen.”
“What if I went and apologized to him?” interjected Tommy hopefully.
Principal Dood walked around the desk and faced Tommy. “Apologize?” he stammered, his face turning red. “You break both of his arms and all you want to do is apologize? Flecks of spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke, bathing Tommy’s grimacing face. “I’m warning you, Dinkle. If anything like this ever happens again, I’ll bounce your butt all the way back to the third grade!”
___
Coach Dribble sat on a bleacher in the empty gymnasium staring dejectedly at a basketball in front of him on the hardwood floor. The brand name WILSON, written on the ball was plainly visible to the coach. “Wilson,” the coach said to what seemed like his only friend in the world, “I almost pulled it off. One more win and I could have kissed this job good-bye. No more parents who don’t understand why little Johnny isn’t first string–even though he can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. No more trying to work with kids so stuck on themselves, their heads barely fit through the door.” Wilson said nothing but seemed to understand the immense responsibilities and pressures of coachhood. “Just one more win and it would have been over. I could have grabbed a pole and gone fishing for the rest of my life.” The coach abruptly stood up and kicked his sympathetic friend furiously. Wilson sailed up and through the air to the far end of the gym where he swished miraculously through the hoop.
“Nice shot, coach,” came a voice from the gymnasium entrance.
Coach Dribble turned to see Big Louie and his two henchmen behind him. “You,” said Coach Dribble as the trio walked toward him with smiles on their faces.
“I heard about your little problem,” said Big Louie to the coach. “Too bad. It looks like the Maggots are going to have Chicken McNuggets tomorrow night.”
“So what’s it to you?” replied Coach Dribble. “You said the bet was off.”
“I been thinking about that, coach,” Big Louie said with mock seriousness. “Big Louie is a man of honor. I couldn’t let you cancel out on a bet that you made in good faith. The bet is still on.”
Coach Dribble looked at Big Louie in astonishment. “You said the bet was off!”
Big Louie raised his jacket and revealed a pistol in a shoulder holster. “I said I was a man of honor and the bet is on.”
___
The filthy Tootville High School boys bathroom needed another good cleaning after some heavy use. Paper towels were strewn everywhere. Graffiti adorned the walls along with a recently hacked up load of mucous that dripped slowly down the mirror. Janitor Jim was alone with the splattered urinals, bravely cleaning up the mess at the end of another normal school day. “I don’t know which is worse,” muttered Janitor Jim to himself as he swept the floor, “cleaning up after the dogs or the kids.” He finished sweeping the debris into a pile and looked at the filthy sinks. “Why didn’t I become a brain surgeon like my mother wanted?”
Outside, in the deserted hallway, the drooling, alien shapeshifter stalked menacingly toward the boys bathroom. It shoved the door open and entered. With his back to the door, Janitor Jim heard the sound of the door being flung open. He didn’t bother to turn around. “The bathroom’s closed for cleaning,” he said in a loud voice.
The alien made a low, growling sound. Janitor Jim looked over to the sinks and saw the image of the seven foot tall creature reflected in the mirror. He turned to face the approaching behemoth and flung up his arms in terror. His scream shattered the silence in the empty school hallway. Then all was still.